


Charms, and their Forgetting

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Christmas, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-14
Updated: 2004-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-11 23:22:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Sirius Black's first winter since leaving Hogwarts, and he's unimpressed.  Remus helps out with a newspaper, a charm, and a whole lot of taunting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Charms, and their Forgetting

Remus eyed Sirius speculatively over the top of _The Daily Prophet_. "You've been standing there for thirty minutes," he said at last. "What are you _doing_?"

Sirius hitched a disinterested shoulder. "Willing it to snow."

"I wasn't aware you had that kind of power."

"Anything's worth a try." He breathed against the windowpane, lifting a hand to trace squiggles and circles on the misted glass. "I miss it."

"It?"

"Snow. A _proper_ winter." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and eyed the gray street beyond the flat. Long nights of frost seemed to have bleached the world of any color it had once had. "We always had snow by now."

Remus hid a smile. "We're several hundred miles south of Hogwarts," he said, reasonably. "It may not snow here at all."

Sirius turned, resting his hips against the windowsill and folding his arms across his chest. "Well that's just not bloody on," he sulked, eyeing the length of unflappable Remus that lay on his couch. "Where's your bloody sense of nostalgia?"

Remus arched an eyebrow. "Well there is something poking me in the shoulder," he said thoughtfully. "I thought it was probably just another broken spring inside this hideous, orange-vomit sofa of love."

Sirius huffed and turned back to look out the window. "Tosser," he muttered.

"Tosser?"

There was a sound of newspaper being crumpled, and Sirius almost smiled. A nice carthartic exchange of barbs would be just the thing to give vent to this mood. "You heard me."

But there was no answering barb. Instead, a snowball whapped him in the back of the head with such force, he banged his forehead against the window. " The fuck?" Sirius wheeled to face Remus, who was sitting on the edge of the sofa methodically balling up a sheet of newspaper in his hands.

"Help you with something?" Remus asked, lifting the paper to his lips and muttering something inaudible. The paper turned to snow in his hands, and smacked Sirius in the chest a fraction of a second later.

"Hey!" Sirius lunged for the newspaper, but Remus was faster, grabbing _The Prophet_ and retreating behind the dangerously tangerine couch.

"Maybe I can be of assistance . . ." He muttered an incantation over another paper ball and dispatched it with precision into Sirius's left ear.

"You bastard!" Sirius yelled, diving behind Uncle Alphard's lime green, wing-backed chair. He grabbed for the copy of _Quidditch Weekly_ he'd left on the floor as a snowball smashed into the fireplace above his hand. "Oh that's _it_ . . ."

Remus laughed from across the room. "Bet you don't even remember the charm," he taunted in a fashion Sirius considered quite unsporting.

"Don't remember the charm?" said Sirius, balling up a color insert in his hands. "Don't remember the bloody charm?" He looked at the paper he held. _Fuck_! he thought desperately, _I don't remember the bloody charm_!

A spectacular curving snowball soared over the top of the chair and smashed into the top of his skull. "I miss the snow, Moony!" cackled Remus from across the room. "Am sad and pining and generally a useless bastard because there is no snow . . . "

With a growl Sirius stood up, muttered something over the paper in his hands and threw a spectacular handful of colored feathers all over Uncle Alphard's chair. Another snowball smacked him in the nose. "REMUS LUPIN!" he yelled.

"Right here," said Remus, and dammit if that wasn't the most infuriating thing ever, the absolute calm with which the fucker was balling up newspaper, not even trying to hide from the onslaught of snowballs that was coming.

Coming just as soon as he could remember the bloody _charm_. " _Frostentium_!" Sirius cried, hoping that bravado would count for something. The paper in his hand remained unchanged, but his jeans turned a lovely shade purple and began to sparkle. "Gah!"

Remus casually lobbed another snowball at his head. "Nice look for you," he teased.

Sirius muttered into his hands, trying to ignore the great gobs of snow sliding down his neck and beneath his shirt. "Take _that_ ," he said, launching a handful of pudding in Remus's direction. The pudding quivered for a second, mid-air, then landed with a satisfied squelch on the couch.

"Oh Padfoot," said Remus reproachfully. "Now where am I going to lay down and rest after all this exertion?"

Sirius felt his eyes bulge out of his head. " _Bastard_!" he yelled, rounding the chair, leaping across the coffee table, and bouncing over the sofa to knock a laughing and stunned Remus to the floor. Straddling his boyfriend's thighs he grabbed at the pristine snowball in Remus's hands and smashed it into the latter's face. "Cocky bloody git," he said, through gritted teeth as Remus spluttered and laughed.

"You forgot the bloody snowball charm," laughed Remus. "YOU who taught it to me in fourth year. You!"

And the memory came flooding back – Remus sitting in the common-room, utterly bewildered by the barrage of snowballs being lobbed at his person by James and Peter on the other side of the room. Sirius, trudging back from detention, almost bursting a gut at the look on the Remus's face, braving the onslaught to drag him behind the sofa and share the secret . . . and oh, the epic fight that followed. He narrowed his eyes at the wriggling Remus on whom he now sat and grabbed for the remaining sheets of the Prophet. " _Nivalisium_ ," he whispered and took his sweet, delighted time in mashing newly conjured snowballs into Remus's sweater, face, and hair.

Remus struggled and laughed until he almost cried. "I give in! I give in!" he yelled, pounding his feet against the floor.

Sirius grinned, still sitting on his thighs. "'Bout time," he said, glowing with triumph. He lowered his face to Remus's damp, wool-covered belly and rubbed his nose against the sweater. "Now you smell right. You smell of winter."

Remus chuckled at the sentiment and the ticklish sensation of one Sirius Black intent on snuffling out memories as if they were truffles. "Still missing the snow?" he asked.

Sirius lifted his head and leaned in to kiss him, lips cold and damp. "Nah," he whispered, eyes flashing happily. "I just remembered how we warmed up after that fight, and I've come over all nostalgic for something else all of a sudden . . . "


End file.
